Jonathan's Space Report
No. 629 2010 Jun 28 Somerville, MA
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's been a banner month for the Ucyu Koku Kenkyu Kaihatsu Kikou
(Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA), with the succesful
deployment of the first ever solar sail propulsion system by the
recently launched Ikaros probe, and the return to Earth on Jun 13 of the
Hayabusa probe after a seven year voyage to asteroid (25143) Itokawa and
back.
Ikaros
-------
Ikaros deployed its 20-meter solar sail between May 28 and Jun 11.
On May 28, four small tip masses were ejected from the four corners
of the sail, and on Jun 14 the tiny DCAM-2 camera subsatellite was
ejected to take pictures of the sail, as Ikaros coasted 9 million km
from the Earth. The identical DCAM-1 was ejected on Jun 19.
Hayabusa
--------
The MUSES-C experimental space probe, named Hayabusa after launch, rode
an M-V solid rocket to space from the Uchinoura Space Center on 2003 May
9. The M-V third stage reached a suborbital trajectory of around -185 x
500 km, and the KM-V2 kick stage then accelerated Hayabusa into an
escape orbit which resulted in a solar orbit. The ion drive began
operating and by Jan 2004 the solar orbit was 0.860 x 1.138 AU x 1.2
deg. A 3725 km Earth flyby on 2004 May 19 pumped up the orbit to 1.01 x
1.73 AU x 1.3 deg,a djusted by Jul 2005 to 0.95 x 1.70 AU x 1.6 deg,
matching Itokawa. Hayabusa arrived at Itokawa on 2005 Sep 12,
stationkeeping at 20 km.
After maneuvering around the object, despite a reaction wheel failure on
Sep 30, Hayabusa approached to only 70 metres from the surface on 2005
Nov 9 and then retreated; in a second descent that day, to 500 m, it
released a small target marker, which failed to land on the asteroid. On
Nov 12, during an approach to 55m, a small experiment cover was ejected
followed by the MINERVA 'hopper' lander, but the lander floated away
from the asteroid rather than touching down (although it may have
impacted the surface by now). On Nov 19, Hayabusa successfully dropped a
second target marker on the surface and then itself touched down,
bouncing and then landing again, taking off after half an hour on the
surface. During second landing on Nov 25, Hayabusa fired two sampling
'bullets' to kick up surface material into its sample collectors. During
takeoff, however, the spacecraft malfunctioned and entered safemode, and
it's not yet known if any material was really captured. It was
recontacted on Dec 5 at a distance of 550 km from Itokwawa, with its
propulsion system only partly working, and a year of uncertainty
followed as JAXA attempted to regain control of the probe and find a way
to propel it home.
Hayabusa departed the Itokawa vicinity in Feb 2007 and, as contollers
coaxed limited function out of its faltering ion drives, set course
for Earth. By Apr 2010 it was in a 0.983 x 1.654 AU x 1.7 deg solar
orbit at 24 million km from home, and began a series of course
corrections to target it for landing.
Hayabusa entered the Earth's gravitational sphere of influence on Jun
11, and passed lunar orbit on Jun 12, approaching Earth on a hyperbola
with an estimated perigee of -64 km, eccentricity of 1.37 and
inclination of 34.5 deg (based on Bill Gray's estimate of the orbit,
since JAXA did not release the information). At 1051 UTC the conical
Hayabusa return capsule separated from the main spacecraft. As they
gained speed in their fall to Earth, the eastward motion of Hayabusa and
capsule was initially slower than Earth's rotation and so their ground
track headed west over the Pacific to around 60E 20N as their altitude
dropped through 23000 km at 1300 UTC, and then, overtaking terrestrial
spin, southeastward toward Australia. Nominal entry was at 200 km
altitude at 1351 UTC, over about 125E 28S, travelling at 12.2 km/s at
about -12 deg to the horizontal. The main spacecraft, with no heat
shield, burnt up by 1352 UTC, as the reentry capsule decelarated
and then descended by parachute. The capsule landed in the Woomera range area
at around 1412 UTC. Congratulations JAXA!
Shuttle and Station
--------------------
Kotov, Creamer and Noguchi returned to Earth on Jun 2 aboard Soyuz
TMA-17. They undocked from the Zvezda module at 0004 UTC and touched
down in Kazakhstan at 0325 UTC. Aleksandr Skvortsov, Mikhail Kornienko
and Tracy Caldwell Dyson officially began Expedition 24 upon TMA-17's
undocking. Soyuz TMA-19 was launched into orbit on Jun 15 with
Fyodor Yurchikhin, Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker; it docked with
Zvezda at 2221 UTC on Jun 17.
Falcon 9
--------
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket successfully reached its target orbit on its
first launch on Jun 2. The Dragon Qualification Unit, attached to the
Falcon 9 second stage, entered a 235 x 276 km x 34.5 deg orbit at 1853
UTC. A second stage restart planned for 1939 UTC did not occur although
there may have been a small 5m/s orbit change at around 2025 UTC;
venting of the second stage was observed over Australia. The Dragon QU
is probably about 4000-5000 kg and is a simplified version of the Dragon
cargo ship that will be used to send supplies to the Space Station on
Falcon 9's next flight. The empty second stage is probably around 2000-3000
kg for a total orbit mass of the vehicle of about 6000-8000 kg. By
late on Jun 26 the DQU/Falcon 9 was in a 138 x 140 km orbit skimming the
atmosphere, and it reentered around 0h UTC on Jun 27.
GPS IIF SV-1
------------
The first Block IIF Global Positioning System satellite, SVN 62, was
launched from Cape Canaveral on May 28. The satellite was built by
Boeing/El Segundo and has a launch mass of 1630 kg including an unknown
amount of stationkeeping propellant. The Block IIF satellites carry the
L1M and L2M military GPS channels, the L2C civilian channel and a new L5
civilian channel as well as a nuclear explosion detection system
(descendant of the Vela satellites, to monitor the test ban treaty) and
the a classified instrument.
The Delta rocket entered a low parking orbit, probably around 270 x 320
km x 37.5 deg, at 0312 UTC. At 0324 UTC it restarted to enter a transfer
orbit of 252 x 20464 x 43.3 deg. At 0620 UTC the stage made a third
burn to a 20437 x 20460 km x 55.0 deg orbit and then deployed the GPS
satellite. (The ULA mission book, in a break with past practice for GPS
launches, did not provide details on the intermediate orbits for this
mission.)
SERVIS-2
--------
Japan's SERVIS-2 satellite, which will test out new commercial satellite
electronics and components, was launched by a Russian Rokot vehicle from
Plesetsk on Jun 2 into an 1186 x 1210 km x 100.4 deg polar orbit.
Beidou
------
China launched the 4th Beidou Navigation Satellite (di si ke beidou daohang
weixing) on Jun 2 into a 205 x 35647 km x 20.5 deg geostationary transfer
orbit. On Jun 8 it was in a 35773 x 35797 km x 1.8 deg GEO at 84.7E.
STSAT-2B
---------
South Korea's Naro-ho (KSLV-1) launch vehicle failed to reach orbit for
the second time on Jun 10. The two-stage vehicle took off from Naro
Space Center but broke apart 137s into flight during the burn of the
Russian-built Angara-class first stage. It is not yet clear what
caused the failure. The rocket carried the 100 kg STSAT-2B research
satellite, a copy of the STSAT-2A lost in last year's launch.
Kosmos-2462
-----------
Russia's Kosmos-2462 spy satellite continues in orbit two months into a
probable three-month mission, with an orbit of 180 x 360 km decaying to
circa 175 x 310 km and then being reboosted. So far reboost burns have
happened on Apr 19, Apr 28, May 8, May 18, May 29, Jun 6 and Jun 26.
Prisma and Picard
------------------
Sweden's PRISMA mission consists of two satellites, Mango and Tango,
which are launched connected to one another. They will separate after
one month in orbit to carry out formation flying experiments. PRISMA was
launched by a Dnepr rocket from Russia's Yasniy missile base on Jun 15.
Also deployed by the Dnepar was France's Picard solar physics satellite
which measures small variations in total solar output and maps out the
differential rotation of the Sun and makes an accurate measurement of
the solar diameter. The BPA-1 (Blok Perspektivnoy Avioniki-1)
experiment for the Ukranian space agency stays attached to the Dnepr third
stage; it is a technology development experiment for aircraft and spacecraft
navigation developed by Khartron-Arkos, who make the Dnepr control system.
Picard is in a 726 x 728 km x 98.3 deg orbit while PRISMA is in a 725 x 785 km
orbit. The BPA-1 is in a 714 x 1268 km orbit; as usual the Dnepr third stage
ends up in a more elliptical path as it separates from the payloads.
Tandem-X
---------
Another Dnepr launch, this time from Baykonur, put the Tandem-X radar
satellite in a 496 x 511 km x 97.5 deg orbit for Germany's DLR. It's a
duplicate of the TerraSAR-X satellite launched in 2007 and will work in
coordination with its sibling. The Dnepr third stage is in a 499 x 1145 km
orbit.
SJ-12
-----
The SJ-12 (shijian shier hao weixing, Practice Satellite 12)
was launched from Jiuquan space center on Jun 15 into a 575 x 597 km x 97.7
deg orbit; the CZ-2D final stage ended up in a 559 x 663 km x 97.7 deg orbit.
The mission of SJ-12 is not known.
Suborbital flights
------------------
The Missile Defense Agency tested a two stage version of the Ground
Based Interceptor on Jun 6. The three-stage version has made eight
flights between 2003 and 2010; both versions are made by Orbital
Sciences. Air Force Global Strike Command carried out a routine training
launch of a Minuteman III from Vandenberg on Jun 16; the single reentry
vehicle made a suborbital flight to Kwajalein atoll in the Pacific. On
Jun 8 and 9, four Trident II missiles, each probably carrying eight
reentry vehicles, were launched down the Eastern Range from the
submarine USS Maryland in another series of training launches.
On Jun 24, a Terrier Orion launched the RockOn educational experiments
from Wallops.
Cassini
-------
Cassini made a 2044 km flyby of Titan's north pole (T-69) on Jun 5,
reducing orbit inclination around Saturn from 12 degrees to 2.0 deg.
After apoapsis on Jun 11, it returned to Titan for the T-70 flyby on
Jun 20 at 0127 UTC, making its closest ever pass at 880 km above the
clouds to measure the dayside ionosphere. This pumped the inclination
back up, and the orbit on Jun 21 was 119500 x 2207600 km x 19.1 deg. The
next flyby is T-71 on Jul 7.
Dawn
----
The Dawn space probe is approaching 2.0 AU from the Sun as it continues
its ion-drive-propelled uphill climb towards asteroid (4) Vesta, which
it will reach in Jul 2011. Dawn is currently in a 1.75 x 2.07 AU x 6.8
deg orbit around the Sun. As always, I encourage readers to keep up with
Marc Rayman's entertaining Dawn Journal at dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.
'Ofeq-9
-------
Israel made its first satellite launch in three years on Jun 22 as a
three stage Shaviyt ('Comet') rocket placed 'Ofeq-9 into a 343 x 588 km
x 141.8 deg orbit; the AUS-51 solid third stage is in a 294 x 595 km
orbit. The 'Ofeq satellites carry imaging reconnaissance payloads. This
is the first launch with a solid-propellant upper stage so far this year
(since the Naro-1 was lost before the upper stage ignited), continuing a
welcome trend resulting in reducing the amount of orbital debris due to
solid motor exhaust particles.
Arabsat 5A/COMS
---------------
Arianespace launched vehicle L552, an Ariane 5ECA, on flight V195 on Jun
26 from Kourou. The EPC stage flew a -1106 x 212 km x 7.2 deg
trajectory, and the ESC-A stage then delivered two satellites to
geostationary transfer orbit. The 4839 kg Arabsat 5A is an Astrium
Eurostar E3000 for C and Ku band coverage of the Middle East and Africa
for Arabsat, the Arab Satellite Communications Organization.
The Chollian satellite is South Korea's Communications,
Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS-1), also a Eurostar E3000 but
only 2461 kg mass at launch. In addition to C and Ku band communications
systems, Chollian carries a multi-spectral meteorological imager with
four 4km-resolution infrared and one 1 km-resolution visible channel,
the GOCI 8-band ocean color imager for studies of clorophyll and turbidity
in Korean peninsular waters, and an L-band/S-band data relay
payload for meteorological data.
According to my Korean colleague D-W Kim: "[Chollian] is composed of 3
letters, Chun - Li - An. (The combined word sounds chollian, by a rule
in Korean language.) Chun = thousand (or very large/long etc.);li = a
unit of length (10 li is about 4 km); An = view or vision. So the word
means "an ability to see out to very long distance (= 1000 li)". Based
on Dong-Woo's comments, maybe "FarView" would be a fair translation, (cf
US imaging satellites like OrbView, WorldView etc.) with "Thousand-Li
View" as a more literal rendering.
Badr
----
Russia's International Launch Services carried the Badr-5 (Arabsat 5B)
communications satellite into a 5764 x 35769 km x 19.0 deg orbit on a
Khrunichev Proton-M/Briz-M on Jun 3. Badr 5 is an Astrium Eurostar 3000
satellite with a launch mass of 5420 kg. By Jun 25 Badr-5 was in
a 35777 x 35797 km x 0.1 deg orbit at 34.5E; it will be stationed at 26E
with Badr-4 and Badr-6.
Rex
---
I regret to announce the death of Rex Hall, former president of the
British Interplanetary Society and the world expert on the biographies
of Soviet cosmonauts. I met Rex when I was a teenage
proto-space-historian and he was always a wonderful mentor and colleague.
---
NOTE: The JSR server suffered a disk crash earlier this month. I have
now almost completely restored the site, although the JSR email subscription list
is out of date. I have transitioned the list to mailman. Updates to
the web page will be sparse for the next few weeks while I am on travel.
Congratulations to the Leicester University X-ray astronomy team on the
50th anniversary of their first rocket launches:
http://www.planet4589.org/space/misc/lux.html
I look forward to seeing some of you in Leicester next week.
Table of Recent (orbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission INTL.
DES.
May 14 1820 Atlantis (STS-132) Space Shuttle Kennedy LC39A Spaceship 19A
May 20 2158 Akatsuki ) H-IIA 202 Tanegashima Venus Probe 20D
Ikaros ) Solar sail 20E
Unitec-1 ) Tech 20F
Negai* ) Tech/imaging 20A
Waseda-Sat 2) Imaging 20B
KSAT ) Science 20C
May 21 2201 Astra 3B ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 21A
ComsatBw-2) Comms 21B
May 28 0300 GPS SVN 62 (IIF SV-1) Delta 4M+(4,2) Canaveral SLC37B Navigation 22A
Jun 2 0159 SERVIS 2 Rokot Plesetsk LC133/3 Tech 23A
Jun 2 1553 Beidou DW4 Chang Zheng 3C Xichang Navigation 24A
Jun 3 2200 Arabsat 5B Proton-M/Briz-M Baykonur LC200/39 Comms 25A
Jun 4 1845 Dragon Qual Unit Falcon 9 Canaveral SLC40 Test 26A
Jun 10 0801 STSAT-2B Naro-1 Naro Tech F02
Jun 15 0139 SJ-12 Chang Zheng 2D Jiuquan Science? 27A
Jun 15 1442 Prisma-Mango ) Dnepr Yasniy Tech 28B
Prisma-Tango ) Tech 28B
Picard ) Solar phys 28A
BPA-1 ) Navigation 28C
Jun 15 2135 Soyuz TMA-19 Soyuz-FG Baykonur LC1 Spaceship 29A
Jun 21 0214 Tandem-X Dnepr Baykonur LC109 Radar 30A
Jun 22 1900? 'Ofeq-9 Shaviyt-1 Palmachim Imaging 31A
Jun 26 2141 Arabsat 5A ) Ariane 5ECA Kourou ELA3 Comms 32A
Chollian ) Comms/Weather 32B
Table of Recent (suborbital) Launches
----------------------------------
Date UT Payload/Flt Name Launch Vehicle Site Mission Apogee/km
May 3 0947 NASA 36.248DR Black Brant IX San Nicholas I Target 150?
May 3 1832 NASA 36.258UE Black Brant IX White Sands Solar EUV 280?
May 4 1241 SpaceLoft SL-4 SpaceLoft XL SW Regional Micrograv 113?
May 5 1150 SR VII Sounding Rocket Jiu Peng Ionosphere 287
May 17 0348 Agni RV Agni A2 Wheeler I Training 300?
May 21 0900 NASA 36.270UG Black Brant IX White Sands UV Astron 325?
Jun 6 2225 BVT-1? GBI Vandenberg Test 300?
Jun 8 USN RV x 8? Trident II SSBN 738, ETR Op Test 1000?
Jun 8 USN RV x 8? Trident II SSBN 738, ETR Op Test 1000?
Jun 9 USN RV x 8? Trident II SSBN 738, ETR Op Test 1000?
Jun 9 USN RV x 8? Trident II SSBN 738, ETR Op Test 1000?
Jun 16 1001 GT200-GM1? Minuteman III Vandenberg Op Test 1300?
Jun 24 1000 NASA 41.088UO Terrier Orion Wallops LA2 Education 120?
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Jonathan McDowell | phone : (617) 495-7176 |
| Somerville MA 02143 | inter : jcm@www.planet4589.org |
| USA | jcm@cfa.harvard.edu |
| |
| JSR: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html |
| Back issues: http://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/back |
| Subscribe/unsub: http://www.planet4589.org/mailman/listinfo/jsr |
'-------------------------------------------------------------------------'